Every Thursday, we will explore new ideas and thoughts to learn and understand why some ideas and thoughts have to be unlearnt. I also feature a movie of the week that left an impact on me and syncs with the topic of the week.
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Hey!
I pray and hope you are safe and healthy. India has been suffering a lot since the past week. It's a difficult situation, so please take precautions and reach out for any help required.
Between work and the stress of the situation, my week flew by quickly. And just that quickly, I want to jump into an exciting experience of my life.
INTROSPECT LIKE YOU EDIT OTHER'S WRITING
School best friends (BFF) are one of the best relationships one ever has. I met mine just three years before school life was over, but we have had some fun experiences.
One of our favorite exercises during school was analyzing people psychologically—a detailed analysis of another person from our perspective and observations. We were psychology students, after all!
On the surface, one might call it gossip or judging other people, but it is far from it. It is deep and focuses on understanding the person and not giving any labels. Gossip is about "what" the other person did; our analysis is about "why" the person did.
So what did it entail? We would name a person, and each of us would then talk about what we think about them. Their vibe, some quirks we observed, their relationship with others, their main personality traits, how they see themselves. And as we stated an observation, we would discuss the why behind it and if the other person feels the same.
To simplify, let's have a quick case study with an elementary example.
In his early 20s, a boy worked in their parent's business after graduation from a well-respected university. He has many friends, likes to party, and is highly conscious of his health and looks. We met him at a party. I described him as having a positive vibe but not genuine, insecure, empathetic, and gullible. She felt he was not empathetic and added that he does not know himself and tries hard to fit in.
Then, her question to me was, why not genuine? Thinking back, I remember him praising someone's attire but his tone and eyes being subtly condescending. We would go back and forth on it and discuss the reasons and conclude with our perception!
Now, years later, we hardly get time to indulge in it.
But, recently, I have been part of some writing editing groups. And there have been discussions around how editing other's work makes our writing better too.
Which made me think that analyzing other people helps you introspect yourself better too!
As you edit another's work, you observe errors, mistakes, and other things. These observations stay in your consciousness, and you become aware of them in your writing as well. Similarly, when you analyze another person, you wake up your conscious mind, and specific observations make you realize truths about yourself.
P.S.The person is imaginary, and resemblance to any person is purely coincidental!
P.P.S I am going to call my best friend and start this exercise again.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND
Reminiscing about school days also took me back to John Nash's biographical film- A Beautiful Mind. It was made in 2001 by Ron Howard and starred Russell Crowe.
I saw it as part of the psychology lecture in school, and it made me realize the power of our minds. It is the story of American mathematician John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics and Abel Prize winner. A genius who suffered from schizophrenia. It explores his delusions in the most intriguing storytelling format and concludes with how he trained his mind to separate reality from illusions. Just a beautiful story of how one can tap into the power of our minds and achieve seemingly impossible tasks.
If you have seen the film, I would love to know what you thought about it. If not, please watch it and let me know your reviews.
We are on issue 4! And I would love your feedback on what you like about these weekly updates, how I can make it better, and anything particularly you would want to read!
See you next week,
Gayatri Taley
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